The world's second largest PC maker Acer aimed at tapping into enthusiasm surrounding the iPad and MacBook Air with Iconia, its keyboard free, mobile touchscreen Windows PC notebook. The downside is that the product costs more than twice as much as the iPad and eats up a battery in less than three hours.

As profiled by Bloomberg, Acer's Iconia 6120 Touchbook runs Windows 7 using an Intel Core i5 CPU, packing the full power of a notebook.

Unlike a conventional notebook, it drops not just its optical drive but also its keyboard, resulting in a 14 inch tablet that users type on directly, similar to the iPad's glass surfaced virtual keyboard. The design won a top ten design award at its debut at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The hybrid device is priced at $1199.99, weighs 6.2 pounds and has a conventional hard drive (640 GB) and packs 4GB of RAM. That makes it an expensive, albeit limited duty and highly specialized Windows PC notebook and a very expensive but ostensibly more powerful iPad alternative.

Also like the iPad (and Air), Acer's Touchbook uses a non-removable battery. However, Bloomberg notes that the machine's "biggest drawback is the battery. The two touch screens suck power like a vacuum cleaner, and even Acers claim of three hours on a full charge may be on the high side if youve got the screens set to bright and are connected to a Wi-Fi network."

Acer's hybrid Touchbook sits in stark contrast to Apple's offerings, which are clearly delineated between the very simple, multitouch iPad and its mobile MacBook Air, which shares iPad technologies and features but maintains a conventional keyboard, trackpad and non-touch display. The 13 inch MacBook Air also aims at light portability, weighing just 2.9 lbs (1.32kg), less than half the weight of the Acer Touchbook. Apple's Air notebook line now standardizes on SSD for storage, trading speed for overall capacity.

Acer unveiled a series of mobile devices running Android and Windows 7 last fall, after predicting that Apple's iPad would rapidly lose its overwhelmingly dominant position in the tablet market and shrink to just 20 percent share as it was forced to complete with platforms that are not "closed."

Acer's initially successful netbook initiative was crushed by the appearance of Apple's iPad last year, suddenly stalling the company's rapid growth in 2010. After announcing intentions to "overhaul operations" in response to Apple's impact on the PC market, the firm's chief executive Gianfranco Lanci resigned late last month.

honestly, the idea is pretty neat. If it was a MBA or MBP with the dual screens with the same battery life and such then I feel it would be in line of things to come. But with the dismal battery life and price and such, it's just not gonna fly. However, for awhile it will give those diehard windoze lovers something they think they can brag about being cutting edge and or different. They will just have to do it while it's plugged in and they have a harness on.

Actually what I find most puzzling is the reference to the iPad and the Air? I don't know if it's Acer itself that is making these comparisons or just AI. It seems to me that it's a complete stretch, this is a unique product (albeit one that probably has a pretty strong identity crisis). Unlike others, I don't blame Acer for trying something different, the biggest problem appears to be a lack of communication as to what the actual benefits of such a beast are. Folks who need to do multi-lingual inputting so having a purely dynamic keyboard can be a boon? I do a lot of video editing and the keyboard is infrequently used, something like this could be handy as I've often wished I had a lightweight LCD that I could physically attach to my MBP so I can run dual screens. And who knows what else.

honestly, the idea is pretty neat. If it was a MBA or MBP with the dual screens with the same battery life and such then I feel it would be in line of things to come. But with the dismal battery life and price and such, it's just not gonna fly. However, for awhile it will give those diehard windoze lovers something they think they can brag about being cutting edge and or different. They will just have to do it while it's plugged in and they have a harness on.

I'm with you on this, I think as a concept, it looks pretty cool.

When it becomes possible to do the same thing a lot lighter and with better battery life (and, lets face it, without Windows), it strikes me as a pretty neat form factor.

honestly, the idea is pretty neat. If it was a MBA or MBP with the dual screens with the same battery life and such then I feel it would be in line of things to come. But with the dismal battery life and price and such, it's just not gonna fly. However, for awhile it will give those diehard windoze lovers something they think they can brag about being cutting edge and or different. They will just have to do it while it's plugged in and they have a harness on.

I agree - treating this like a full sized product, the idea is interesting. I think even the price can be justified when you compare it to a MacBook Pro (which the specs imply it is close to). The main problems are the weight and battery life. And I think those would be just too much to justify, especially given it may be hard to find a reason to get this product as opposed to a normal laptop.

How is this a competitor to an iPad or an Air? It is completely different to both of them. Unless it's because they are all computers with an OS and screens, in that case they're identical. In that case a Range Rover is the same thing as a BMW Z4, they both have wheels and people fit inside them.

This doesnt compete with the ipad, their honeycomb tablet is the one that competes with the ipad. Why doesnt DED make a worthwhile comparison, rather than this retarded comparison?

It depends on what comparison Acer is making. If they're comparing this to an iPad, then it's fair for DED to do so as well. But I don't know what Acer is saying about this as I've only seen a quick blurb about it before, and dismissed it as being impractical.

And this is why Apple as a company has no competition and will remain the most profitable tech company for decades to come. This is just the most clueless product ever produced by one of the many pc vendors out there.

I would love to see Flash running on both screens to see what the battery life is like. May require an external battery pack to keep this puppy running!! It even has wheels for the ultimate in power portability!!!

"It's just a big iPod touch" Hmm... sounds familiar lol. Only unlike the 'big iPod touch', this one looks like it will maybe sell worse than Xoom.

Quote:

Do the Apple-competitors remotely have a distant clue?

It's becoming increasingly clear they don't. Why else would such a product make it further than a whiteboarding session?

In fact, almost none of Apple's competitors seem to get it. Look at the deluge of top-level brass among the competition that seem to be in a race to publicly embarrass themselves with comments that belie their failure to grasp the real underlying reasons for Apple's success and their own failure. Anyone who has been reading this site for a while knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm not so much surprised anymore at DOA-product announcements, but I am wondering if and when anyone WILL finally figure out what it is about Apple that they need to actually compete with. It's not products, btw. I suspect it has more to do with the vision/values/culture/objectives at Apple of which their products are a function. That is the 'clue' they don't have. And they won't start to compete until they figure that out. The later it is that they do, the more distance they'll have to catch up.

I hope someone does get it though, because Real Competition will drive Apple to improve more and faster, which means we the consumers will benefit. I dislike Android, but it's the best thing to happen to iOS since SJ.

P.S. I wonder how long is the longest any iPad 2 has sat on a retail shelf during business hours. I'd bet it's mere minutes.

You did not come into the world to fail. You came into the world to succeed.

It depends on what comparison Acer is making. If they're comparing this to an iPad, then it's fair for DED to do so as well. But I don't know what Acer is saying about this as I've only seen a quick blurb about it before, and dismissed it as being impractical.

I have never seen Acer claim this is a competitor to the iPad. Now their tablet range, the honeycomb versions, they are marketing towards the ipad. They are bringing out hteir 10.1" honeycomb tablet (released locally 20th April) at exactly the same price as the ipad.